Twenty-two years after his opening-day emergency start for the Dodgers, a 2-0 shutout over the Houston Astros, Fernando Valenzuela is a rookie again. He sits in Dodger Stadium and pans the field with binoculars. During the bottom of the seventh inning in a home game against the Colorado Rockies, he bobs his head as the crowd sings mass karaoke to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." But Valenzuela is not on the field.

I missed Chick. This is supposed to be a column about Laker opening night, the ring ceremony, the banner raising, and it will be, in a minute, but indulge this old fool for a minute. I missed Chick. His widow Marge was at midcourt. His voice was coming out of the scoreboard. His name is on every championship ring. But there was no spotlight on his seat, no pre-game introduction, no standing ovation, no him.

Question: What do Troy Percival, Robb Nen and Joe Buck have in common? Answer: They are invaluable, irreplaceable stoppers for their respective World Series teams. Buck pitches for Fox, meaning he faces the most daunting assignment of all: putting out the fires set ablaze by partner Tim McCarver, verbal pyromaniac.

Paul Sunderland and the Lakers have agreed in principle on a deal that will make him the second play-by-play announcer the NBA team has had since it moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis in 1960. "Paul and the Lakers are satisfied with the terms that have been worked out," Sunderland's agent, Martin Mandel of San Francisco, said Monday night. Mandel said he expected the contract to be signed today or Wednesday, with an announcement after that.

Soon after I realized I wouldn't be Magic Johnson, I wanted to be Chick Hearn. Chick Hearn made the play-by-play job look like so much fun. It must have been, for him to keep doing it all of those years, through 3,338 consecutive games, and even after two major surgeries. I set out on a path to Chick's seat, but took a detour through the world of writing.

I don't recall much about the conversations, other than the privilege of having them. He would be sitting on the level of his assigned broadcasting post, but several sections off to the side, and all by himself almost two hours before another Laker game. An icon sitting alone, now isn't that crazy? There was never any question, Chick Hearn was going to be there.

Nothing--not even Chick Hearn's death--is so sacred people won't try to make a buck off it. The EBay auction site has experienced a surge in Hearn-related items since the longtime Laker announcer died Monday of complications from a head injury he suffered in a fall last week at his Encino home. Not surprisingly, the asking and selling prices of those items have soared.

We didn't only lose a voice. We lost a guy who rode shotgun with us on harried winter afternoons. We lost a neighbor who sat in our living rooms on tortured spring evenings. We lost a friend, darn it, an old friend, a dear friend, a crumudgeonly, eccentric, funny, couldn't-wait-to-see-him-again friend. A trusted friend. Besides Vin Scully, do Los Angeles sports fans have any of those left? Chick Hearn is gone, and it's hard to even write the words.

Not since college has sportscaster Todd Donoho worked exclusively in radio, but his bosses at ESPN don't consider him inexperienced. They want him to do the same things he's done for 25 years on television--just without the cameras rolling. So "The Todd Donoho Show With Dave Stone," which airs weekdays from 1 to 4 p.m. on KSPN-AM (1110), the area's ESPN Radio affiliate, became the station's second local program.